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Overdrive/Distortion/Muff/Fuzz
- Thread starter Brainfour
- Start date
As crappy as this thread became, nobody recommended a Reeves 225, so we have that going for us....
I'm actually surprised it didn't get into an argument on whether a rat pedal is a fuzz or not. 
I'm actually surprised it didn't get into an argument on whether a rat pedal is a fuzz or not.
I wanted to make a joke about a proco rat with no blend being the answer for a transparent OD but I am afraid people would actually take me seriously and agree.
just found/ordered a Barbershop ... found it from Prymaxxe on Ebay ... made offer of $150 shipped for a brand new sealed unit ...
hopefully it will give the warm touchy tubeness to the front end of my bass/guitar .. !!??
i'll report back later ...
hopefully it will give the warm touchy tubeness to the front end of my bass/guitar .. !!??
i'll report back later ...
It's built well enough. Thinking something doesn't sound good translates into POS? No wonder you were offended. It's all good man. I hope you love the poopie out of that pedal.
Have a day.
Great pedal, you will totally freaking love it. And your expectations for it are perfect.
I started skimming posts when the bickering started so my apologies if this has all been covered but I think it comes down to helping the OP pin down exactly what it is he's looking for. Because looking for something to get the "Breed" tone or looking to cop Muse tones (depending on the song) but then asking for a mild, transparent overdrive are two very different things. And of course availability and budget are big part of the equation.
Here's the isolated bass from Breed which as others have stated, was recorded using a ProCo Rat.
And without knowing for sure I'm going to guess the Muse song is "Hysteria". If I were trying to get very close to the exact tones for Breed and Hysteria with pedals I'd get a Rat clone for Breed (probably the Idiot Box Blower Box) and the Prunes and Custard for Hysteria.
If I were trying to get both sounds with a single pedal I think the Darkgass B3K would be on the short list. It can get reasonably close to the Breed sound and can get buzzy enough to get a reasonable sound for Hysteria as our own Alvaro shows:
But as stated, that pedal is NOT transparent and does have a baked in tone that you may or may not like which is why opinions on it can be polarized. But the Darkglass stuff is very well built/designed and they do what they do very well IMO.
On the other hand if you really are just looking for a "touch of grit" then the Barbershop is a good recommendation. The Pork Loin too. But I like Matt's recommendation of the Elements because it can cover a lot of ground in a single pedal. The Aguilar Agro is another great option. It can get very close to the grind of Breed but can also do lower gain and is much more transparent than the Darkglass B3K. And it should be easier to find than many of the other pedals suggested. That might be the ticket for you really.
At the end of the day all you can really do is do a bit of research and buy a pedal. You won't find out if it works for you, your setup and your applications by reading online opinions. You have to take the plunge and try it. Given the constraints of your location I'd say just take your bass (and your amp if you can) to any store that will let you try out pedals and buy the one is your price range that gets closest to the sound you want rather than trying to buy something online that will prove very expensive for you. I love geeking out over gear (and pedals in particular) but for now just find something that works at a price you can afford and if you really feel you need to upgrade it down the road then do so.
Hope that helps.
Here's the isolated bass from Breed which as others have stated, was recorded using a ProCo Rat.
And without knowing for sure I'm going to guess the Muse song is "Hysteria". If I were trying to get very close to the exact tones for Breed and Hysteria with pedals I'd get a Rat clone for Breed (probably the Idiot Box Blower Box) and the Prunes and Custard for Hysteria.
If I were trying to get both sounds with a single pedal I think the Darkgass B3K would be on the short list. It can get reasonably close to the Breed sound and can get buzzy enough to get a reasonable sound for Hysteria as our own Alvaro shows:
But as stated, that pedal is NOT transparent and does have a baked in tone that you may or may not like which is why opinions on it can be polarized. But the Darkglass stuff is very well built/designed and they do what they do very well IMO.
On the other hand if you really are just looking for a "touch of grit" then the Barbershop is a good recommendation. The Pork Loin too. But I like Matt's recommendation of the Elements because it can cover a lot of ground in a single pedal. The Aguilar Agro is another great option. It can get very close to the grind of Breed but can also do lower gain and is much more transparent than the Darkglass B3K. And it should be easier to find than many of the other pedals suggested. That might be the ticket for you really.
At the end of the day all you can really do is do a bit of research and buy a pedal. You won't find out if it works for you, your setup and your applications by reading online opinions. You have to take the plunge and try it. Given the constraints of your location I'd say just take your bass (and your amp if you can) to any store that will let you try out pedals and buy the one is your price range that gets closest to the sound you want rather than trying to buy something online that will prove very expensive for you. I love geeking out over gear (and pedals in particular) but for now just find something that works at a price you can afford and if you really feel you need to upgrade it down the road then do so.
Hope that helps.
I would imagine that would help the OP immensely. I agree he may not of known exactly what he meant when he was asking. This should clear it up nicely.
Re: The Elements
I'm with you both... I owned a Elements for a while and in a moment of compulsive pedal flipping I traded it. I am now also very close to getting another one... it is just so good. The good doctor stated with The Cleanness as the basis of The Elements, with is an awesome clean boost and EQ; then added a ton of gain controls.
I'm trying so hard not to order this pedal, but it's getting more and more difficult to resist.
I'm with you both... I owned a Elements for a while and in a moment of compulsive pedal flipping I traded it. I am now also very close to getting another one... it is just so good. The good doctor stated with The Cleanness as the basis of The Elements, with is an awesome clean boost and EQ; then added a ton of gain controls.
It's been stated by others many times in this thread, but the tones the OP cited do not meet his request of "a little dirt, without totally erasing my original lovely bass tone". Obviously the Muse and Nirvana bass tones are heavily processed: TONS of dirt and tone coloration.
I went to JohnK's overdrive pedal page. I respect the hell out of him a dozen different ways, but he has his own tone goals. He hates the B3K because of its colored sound, but many popular OD tones are highly colored. If you're going for the Muse tone, or many others ranging from John Entwistle and Chris Squire, to Geddy Lee and Billy Sheehan, to Tony Levin's "Sledgehammer" and Dug Pinnick's signature tones, then a highly-colored pedal might be perfect. One could argue that you should use uncolored distortion in conjunction with EQ tweaks instead -- yeah, that's one solution, but maybe it's easier to leave EQ alone and switch from one flavored distortion pedal to another.
I just got a Brimstone XD2 (JohnK loves the XD1), and a Darkglass B7K (essentially a B3K with EQ). I'm still getting the hang of 'em, but like 'em both. When I play modern hard rock, I prefer the B7K. OK, so it has a scoopy sound, but I agree with you that it's a very cool sound, and not as scooped as SansAmp BDDI with Blend up full.
And the other part of that obviously is each person's bass, rig and playing style. John has an amazing selection of vintage basses (P's, J's, MM's, Rics, his own vintage inspired creations - his Jazzmasters are amazing etc) and primarily goes for a warm, classic sound. It's certainly understandable that through his rigs and with his basses and with his playing style the B3K is absolutely the opposite of what he wants in a bass overdrive. But for the guy playing metal with a downtuned Spector 5 string the B3K might be indispensable.
I have enormous respect for John, his knowledge and his abilities. And I tend to hear overdrives in very much the same way he does - but in the end, it's primarily just his opinion of what does and doesn't work for him and I think even he'd admit that. Same thing with KJung's opinions on amps. Which was kind of funny because he and I had such different tone goals that I'd often know I'd like something based on why he didn't.
Hello again,
I know those two tones I mentioned are totally different, that's why I said "and if it's possible with one pedal, Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme" and "it's not needed to be the exact same effect Krist or Chris uses". "I'm not accustomed to effect pedals" doesn't mean I don't have ears
I found EHX Big Muff in the local shops, and (despite nobody mentioned here) Tech21 SansAmp and Joyo Ultimate Drive (which is generally listed in Guitar Effects not Bass)
Here are some websites of local shops:
Link Removed (Bass Guitar effects page)
Invalid Link Removed (Bass Guitar Overdrive Effects page)
Invalid Link Removed (Local EBay, does not have a specific category for Bass Effects)
Bas gitar efekt pedalı satışı en uygun koşullarla GaRaJ'da (Bass Guitar Effects page)
I know those two tones I mentioned are totally different, that's why I said "and if it's possible with one pedal, Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme" and "it's not needed to be the exact same effect Krist or Chris uses". "I'm not accustomed to effect pedals" doesn't mean I don't have ears
I found EHX Big Muff in the local shops, and (despite nobody mentioned here) Tech21 SansAmp and Joyo Ultimate Drive (which is generally listed in Guitar Effects not Bass)
Here are some websites of local shops:
Link Removed (Bass Guitar effects page)
Invalid Link Removed (Bass Guitar Overdrive Effects page)
Invalid Link Removed (Local EBay, does not have a specific category for Bass Effects)
Bas gitar efekt pedalı satışı en uygun koşullarla GaRaJ'da (Bass Guitar Effects page)
Sorry dude but I am not going through local web pages for you.
That's one step too far. You have our recs? And I am sure Thomann delivers to Turkey.
That's one step too far. You have our recs? And I am sure Thomann delivers to Turkey.
gregmon79 asked what local shops sell, that's why I included the websites.
Thomann (and lots of other online shops) delivers to Turkey, but for an item over $100, the customs procedures apply, which can be expansive and bureaucratic as I mentioned on my previous post.
Hello again,
I know those two tones I mentioned are totally different, that's why I said "and if it's possible with one pedal, Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme" and "it's not needed to be the exact same effect Krist or Chris uses". "I'm not accustomed to effect pedals" doesn't mean I don't have ears
I found EHX Big Muff in the local shops, and (despite nobody mentioned here) Tech21 SansAmp and Joyo Ultimate Drive (which is generally listed in Guitar Effects not Bass)
Here are some websites of local shops:
Link Removed (Bass Guitar effects page)
Invalid Link Removed (Bass Guitar Overdrive Effects page)
Invalid Link Removed (Local EBay, does not have a specific category for Bass Effects)
Bas gitar efekt pedalı satışı en uygun koşullarla GaRaJ'da (Bass Guitar Effects page)
Well the ultimate drive can work with bass or guitar. You may lose a little of your bottom but it really does retain it well compatibly. The sansamp you want is not a guitar pedal, the bass driver (BDDI). It's a bass preamp, and while you can get some dirty tones from it, it's not a dist pedal. I'll take a look at those sites you posted. See if they offer anything good for you.
